“What’s Up Wednesday” is a fun weekly meme started by my friends Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk. From Jaime: It’s similar in some respects to the Currently… post, but it’s been whittled down to only four headings to make it quicker and more manageable on a weekly basis. You’re invited to join us if you’re looking for something to blog about, a way to let your blog friends know what’s been going on with you. If you’re participating, make sure to link your What’s Up Wednesday posts to the list on Jaime’s blog each week. That way, others can visit your post and check out what you’ve been up to. And now, here’s what’s up with me this week…
What I’m Reading: I finished Amy Reed’s Beautiful and loved it. It’s stark and gritty and disturbing, not to mention incredibly well written. I can’t wait to read more of her work! Now, I’m reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. One of my Thirty Before 35 goals is to read and review one of his novels (I’ve never picked up his fiction, if you can believe that) and I chose this one because there’s no movie adaptation to spoil the story, and because I like time travel and history. This book is dense, y’all, but so far, so good. Look for a review soon!
What I’m Writing: I made a mood board for my SNI and it’s now my computer’s desktop background. It’s so pretty! (Incidentally, I used the collage function in Pic Monkey to make this mood board because the site I’ve used in the past, Mood Share, appears to be no more. Lame.) I also did some title research and found (what I think is) the PERFECT title. And, I wrote a query-like pitch, which helped me focus all the ideas floating in my head into (what I hope will be) a compelling story. My agent gave the pitch a thumbs-up, so I’m getting busy with some serious plotting and a little bit of drafting.
What Else I’ve Been Up To: I pulled something in my neck (sneezing, because I’m awesome) and I’ve been dealing with tightness and spasming muscles for the last week. I finally broke down and went to the doctor yesterday, and now I have some glorious muscles relaxers that are making movement slightly less than torturous. Yay medicine! Other than that…
Lots of cheerleading with my little lovely. I adore the above photo of my husband giving her a pep talk through the fence. ❤
We also visited Sweet Seasons Farm to make our way through their corn maze (my daughter: “I’m a maze runner!”) and pick out a few pumpkins. Fall is so much more tolerable when it’s 85 degrees ouside. 🙂
What Works For Me: Accountability. I have some awesome writing buddies who help me stay on track with drafting/revision goals. One of my CPs and I often exchange snippets of what we’ve recently worked via email. Not for critique, but for encouragement and inspitation. Knowing that I have to send a sample off to her at the end of the day really keeps me motivated. Plus, getting to read her samples is an excellent reward! I also have a trio of writer friends who I check in with on a shared spreadsheet. Seeing that they’ve written 1K+ or 2K+ or 3K+ words in a day makes me want to keep up with them. Nothing like a little peer pressure to fuel production!
Tell me… What’s up with you today?
katyupperman.com 
I’m not a big fan of Stephen King myself, the only book of his I’ve been able to finish is Misery. Good luck with all your plotting and drafting and I hope your neck feels better soon!
I am a fan of Misery’s movie adaptation. Freaky! I’m not sure what I think of King’s writing style yet. It’s very different from the more fast-paced YA I’m used to, but this story is holding my attention. Have a great week, Jess!
I think, I think I read a Stephen King`s novel back when I was a teenager but I can’t remember for sure. Doh!
Looking forward to reading your review!
Glad your neck is feeling a bit better 🙂
That pic of your husband and your daughter is adorable and the one of her running through the maze is pretty cool and eerie…
And yay for accountability! This really does help and I am very grateful to you ladies 🙂 And I remember sharing lines each day, it really did help too so go, Katy, go!
I’m grateful for the spreadsheet and the endless support, too, Elodie. Yay for accountability buddies! Have an awesome week, lady!
Using your mood board as your desktop background is an awesome idea! I love using Picmonkey, too Best of luck with all the plotting! 🙂
Thanks, Emma! I highly recommed mood boards as backgrounds. Awesome for motivation! Have a wonderful week!
I’ve read only 2 Stephen King books – Carrie (which I read at 14, scared me but I also loved it) and Shawshank Redemption which was great! Both have movie adaptations I know 😛 My mom read the one you’re reading and while it is LOOOOOOOONG I know she really enjoyed it 🙂 Glad your neck is feeling a little better and love the accountability spreadsheet. What a neat idea to keep motivated! Have a great week, Katy!
P.S. Might be stealing your mood board idea and make it my desktop to keep me motivated. 🙂
I kind of want to read SHAWSHANK because somehow I’ve never seen the movie. I’ve heard it’s excellent, though! Have a fantastic week, Rachel!
I’ve never read Stephen King. I’m too much of a wimp to, plus his stuff is super long. (she says as she’s reading a 500+ paged books).
I love your mood board. I tried that once with magazine clippings, but I never finished. I might try something online next time.
Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, the King book I’m reading is nearly 900 pages. It’s insane. It’s holding my attention, though, so that’s something! I definitely think you should try on online mood board. Much easier to find just the right images, and it’s neater! 🙂 Have a great week!
I’ve never made it through a Stephen King book – mostly because I get freaked out. I’m still traumatized by the bits of CARRIE and THE DARK HALF I read when I was a teen lol.
Ugh to neck pains – glad you’re feeling better!
I’m enjoying fall with temps about 20 degrees cooler 🙂
11/22/63 isn’t scary, so if you ever feel like giving another of King’s books a try, maybe pick it up. Have a great week, Jennifer!
I love the cheerleading uniforms, but I suppose I’m biased, since purple and gold are also UAlbany’s colors.
I’ve never read Stephen King either, though I adore nothing more than a big fat juicy book, hundreds of pages, where you can climb into and just live in for a few weeks.
Funny, Carrie-Anne, because purple and gold are the colors of my high school AND college rivals. It hurts my heart to see my daughter in those colors. 😉 So far, I’m really enjoying 11/22/63. It’s definitely one of those books that consumes you. Let me know what you think if you check it out!
I personally LOVE seeing C in purple and gold (they’re ECU colors too!) and those pics are just super adorable! But I’m sorry about the neck pain. 😦 Glad you have some meds to help!
Also, yay to accountability and SO GLAD Victoria gave the pitch a thumbs up! I am going to LOVE this one!
I’m so glad too — what a relief! Can’t wait to hear about how the MB revision is going… Hurry, hurry, hurry so I can read ALL the words!
Ooh, must add Beautiful to my TBR pile! It sounds fantastic. Accountability is huge for me too, makes me work hard because know others are relying on me. Glad you got something for your neck, I did something to mine earlier this year and it sucked!
Let me know what you think of BEAUTIFUL, Prerna. It was tough to read (the MC is so horrifyingly young!) but totally worth the heartache. Hope you have a great week!
I LOVE the mood board. If I was just a little more ambitious, I might make me one of those. I’ve got a hidden board or three on Pinterest with all my collections of inspirations…when I remember to put them there. Most the time they just end up in the word document with the story. Oops.
The joy of the mood board is that it MAKES you more ambitious! It’s nearly impossible for me to open my laptop and NOT want to write after looking at it. Pictures in Word work too — I’m just too anal to not have them all in one place. Have a fantastic week, Crystal!
I’ve only read one Stephen King when I was a teenager and I can’t remember which one. It was fantasy-ish though I think…
I just bit my own tongue and now I’m tasting blood so I’m right up there in awesome! 😉
Ha! Isn’t accidental self-injury joyous?! My doctor looked at me like I was nuts when I told her how I’d hurt my neck. 🙂 Hope your week quickly improves, Melanie!
From the sounds of it, this was a great week for title-finding. 🙂 Can’t wait to hear what you came up with. Love your mood board too! I use picmonkey all the time for so many things, but specifically the collage feature. So handy! You know, I really need to consider writing a pre-drafting query for the reason you mentioned. I’ve thought about doing it in the past, but since queries are just ughhhhhh, I’ve never attempted it. I’ve been finding that my outlining abilities kind of stink lately, so this might be a good way to work all of the ideas into some sort of order. Hope you’re having a great week, Katy!
Last year I pulled something in my back by sleeping. So you’re definitely not alone there 🙂